I am going to obscure the names in the vignette I'm about to share to protect folks who don't deserve harrassment.

Once I had a brilliant young fellow at the New America Foundation, now a prominent national journalist, who wrote about the subject of "hero inflation" in America. He wrote an op-ed which appeared in the Boston Globe that stated that the firemen who died in the 9/11 attacks in New York were not really heroes in the true sense of the term.

In a nanosecond, this young, charismatic writer was invited on to Bill O'Reilly's show on Fox. O'Reilly didn't demolish him overtly; he did it in a grand-fatherly way grinning through the interview that he couldn't believe that this young writer was sticking to his guns.

But for those rubbed the wrong way by this story, know that there were many who agreed with you. I was in Tokyo when the piece appeared and literally had hundreds of emails from fire brigades in my in box -- preparing to protest at the New America Foundation's offices. I was able to secure someone who was heading the fire brigade email campaign and make a case to him about intellectual freedom that seemed to make sense to him -- and he told his troops to stand down.

I empathized with those who felt the writer had been insensitve and in some ways wrong. My own father died while active duty in the U.S. Air Force and had many friends who were firefighters, one in Bayonne, NJ -- very near to the New York action. They are heroes in my book -- but nonetheless, I got what this young writer was trying to say.

The bigger point is that any institution that doesn't take risks isn't worth its existence. And in any risk-taking environment, there will be flops and successes. Embrace the flops, the miscasts, the mistakes. It's part of succeeding next time.

I looked at the article as both a flop, of sorts, but also -- on a different level -- as a successful example of creative, out of the box thinking that was supposed to be going on at the New America Foundation -- and this writer deserved to be protected, supported, given some counseling on "framing", but immediatley launched out again to be a constructive provocateur in the public policy world. If we had censored him, or censored any other of our staff, our organization would have lost one of the key points of differentiation in a very crowded marketplace of Washington, DC think tanks.

Somehow, the fire brigades appreciated the honest response, got the "risk-taking" metaphor offered them, and seemed to be OK that we would chat with and counsel the writer -- but that he would not be fired.

Now John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt -- both distinguished, globally respected public intellectuals -- the former at the University of Chicago and the latter at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government -- are under serious pressure and attack from some quarters for a controversial study that they have done on the Israel lobby in America.

I am not meaning to suggest that their paper is either a flop or great success -- yet. But their paper does provoke -- about that there is no disagreement.

I remember when Pat Choate's book, Agents of Influence, came out documenting in great detail Japan's heavy investment in Washington's lobbying machinery. The book was just as controversial -- and Choate had a very hard time getting speaking gigs at Japan-related public affairs organizations in the United States. I ran the Japan America Society of Southern California at the time and organized the first event for Pat Choate at such a US-Japan outfit in the U.S.

Interestingly, Choate provided a roster of other nations and their lobbyists in D.C. in the appendix of his book.

Those of you who have it around, take a look at it. Israel is not in the list.

Why you might ask? Pat Choate's perfectly understandable response to me was that he had enough grief with the Japan dimensions of the book as it was.

I have not yet had the time to fully digest the Walt/Mearsheimer paper. My friend and colleague "Daniel Levy has, and Justin Raimondo has as of this morning.

There are other critiques out there, and I encourage those interested to look at all of them, but also read the paper itself so that the lens through which you decide to read the Walt/Mearshemer article is more your own than someone else's.

Richard Beeston at The Australian has reported that:

It has confirmed that Stephen Walt, the co-author of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, will be stepping down in June as academic dean of the prestigious John F. Kennedy School of Government to become an ordinary professor.

Justin Raimondo has taken the above reference and asserted that Stephen Walt has paid the price of his "academic deanship" at the Kennedy School for the piece:

The reaction to the Harvard University study by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," has been fury by the Lobby and its partisans -- and a demotion for Walt, who, it was announced shortly after the paper's release, would be stepping down from his post as dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. As the New York Sun reports (via the Harvard Crimson):

"Yesterday's issue of The New York Sun reported that an 'observer' familiar with Harvard said that the University had received calls from 'pro-Israel donors' concerned about the KSG paper. One of the calls, the source told The Sun, was from Robert Belfer, a former Enron director who endowed Walt's professorship when he donated $7.5 million to the Kennedy School's Center for Science and International Affairs in 1997. 'Since the furor, Bob Belfer has called expressing his deep concerns and asked that Stephen not use his professorship title in publicity related to the article,' the source told The Sun."

And since Raimondo's piece went up -- my email inbox has been packed by people saying that something must be done to rally in support of Stephen Walt. Perhaps, but people need to be careful.

I communicate with Stephen Walt semi-regularly and share many of his views about American foreign policy, but I have not communicated with him today about this news that he is being demoted from his position as "Academic Dean" allegedly because of the provocative paper he has co-authored.

Now, I have just received the following communication sent by the Dean of the Kennedy School suggesting that there is no connection between Walt's stepping down as academic dean at the natural end of his term and this "Israel Lobby" paper.

The Dean writes:

31 March 2006

To Members of the Kennedy School Community:

Many of you may be aware that Steve Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer have written a paper titled "The Israel Lobby," which appeared in the London Review of Books. Steve also posted a somewhat longer and more academic version of the piece as a working paper on the Kennedy School web site. The paper has generated a great deal of controversy and significant coverage in the press around the world.

Throughout this episode, I have sought to be driven by one principle above all others: maintain academic freedom for our scholars and our school. Such freedom is one of the most fundamental tenets of universities. I believe we all have a responsibility to stand up for that freedom, and I will fight hard to preserve it here at the Kennedy School. In the long tradition of the University, faculty members are free to publish and speak out on any important issue; others can and will respond vigorously.

Kennedy School faculty members have the right to post working papers in order to facilitate discussion by scholars and others. These papers must be academic in form, with appropriate use of footnotes and sourcing. The school does not make judgments about the content of working papers before posting. Academic work is best judged in the serious give and take of intellectual and scholarly debate. That debate is already underway with this paper, and some members of our faculty have spoken out on the issue. The significance of all work must be judged in the marketplace of ideas, not by the administration of the school.

Some have asked whether Steve's status as academic dean has any impact on this issue. We expect and hope that academic deans will carry on a rich intellectual life as Steve has, and as his predecessors did. Although some in the media have made much of his administrative position to raise the profile of this story and add to the controversy, Steve was clearly writing as an individual professor, not in any official capacity here at the school. His academic dean title did not appear in the credits. And even though everyone here at the school has known for many months that Steve's term as academic dean was coming to an end this summer, some media, in spite of our strong efforts, have chosen to portray the timing as significant. That is flat wrong and unfair.

There have been numerous false reports that this paper was written by two Harvard authors and that it was somehow an official document vetted and published by Harvard University. In part at Steve's suggestion and with the goal of pushing the discussion back into the realm of scholarly debate, the school strengthened its disclaimer and removed the logo from the cover page to clarify that this was not an official Kennedy school document. It is in absolutely no way a judgment about the paper, and the goal was to put the focus where it belongs: on the ideas expressed by two well-known international relations scholars.

Recently Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard Law School sent a request we had never received before. He had written a direct response to the paper and wished the courtesy of having it posted on our web site as well. After discussing this situation with Joe Nye and others, I concluded that this request should also be evaluated in the context of academic freedom and vigorous open debate. We are, after all, one university. Thus under appropriate circumstances, I have agreed to let faculty from other schools at Harvard post responses to any Kennedy School faculty working paper. These will be available in a special Harvard response section, which will make clear that they are not the work of Kennedy School authors. I put my faith in the value of the free and open exchange of ideas.

I know that many of you have strong feelings about this recent work and perhaps about how the school has or has not handled the situation. These issues will be widely discussed -- evidence of the very academic freedom and vigorous response that is so fundamental to our work. Still we must try not to let our ideas and reactions divide us or distract us from our larger mission. It is far too important a time in the world to allow that to happen. We must work together as one community and one school. And we will do that best with free, open, and energetic debate.

Sincerely,

David T. Ellwood
Dean

So, terminated by disguise? or just coincidental?

To put this in some kind of context, consider the case of our current President and his father's national security advisor, General Brent Scowcroft.

Brent Scowcroft was not asked back by President G.W. Bush to serve another term as Chairman of the President's Federal Intelligence Oversight Board when his term expired on December 31, 2004. At a New Year's luncheon at Zbigniew Brzezinski's home, Scowcroft reportedly told those assembled that "The President fired me."

I asked Scowcroft about the PFIAB "firing" on January 6, 2005, and he theatrically declined to comment, but his meaning was clear -- and everyone in the room knew it.

Here is the exchange from the above linked transcript:

Steve Clemons to Brent Scowcroft:

There is a lot of interest about your role, or the end of your role, on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Any comments on health of institution?

Brent Scowcroft:

No (said dramatically; laughter from crowd)

Scowcroft felt he had been fired by President Bush because of criticisms of the Bush administration's management of U.S. foreign policy.

Now, Stephen Walt should be making clear whether he "feels" fired from his position, or "demoted" as Justin Raimondo framed it. Perhaps yes -- or perhaps no.

But what is important in this debate -- no matter how strongly Walt and Mearsheimer's advocates and critics want to plead their cases -- is that it is critically important to not send signals that America's leading universities are bastions of thought control and censorship.

If Walt was planning to step down under normal conditions -- and not be renewed -- then the Kennedy School Dean's letter is very fair....but it's also important not just to send a communication to students and faculty at the Kennedy School but to do something to stand by the right of Stephen Walt to think and publish his work.

When the Toyota-funded "Japan Chair" was established many years ago at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, I wrote an op-ed asking whether that Toyota Japan Chair at CSIS would ever "consider" hiring Chalmers Johnson -- one of the leading authorities on Japan in the U.S. but also the then-acknowledged "godfather of revisionists" on Japan.

I wasn't asking CSIS to hire Johnson -- but to keep institutions safe, the hiring of a Chalmers Johnson acolyte needed to be considered. If the answer was no, then the financing of the CSIS chair was not worth the sacrifice of moral and intellectual integrity that it would entail.

Let's hope that in its Deanships and its various Chairs, the Kennedy School does not go down that road.

More on the substance of the Mearsheimer/Walt paper another time -- but in the mean time -- people need to sort out what is real from what is not.

And I hope that this piece finds itself to Stephen Walt who will send me a note on whether he feels "fired" or not for airing his views and research.

-- Steve Clemons

What follows is an email sent to me by former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson.

Col. Wilkerson has given me permission to share publicly:

In fact, in a speech I gave on Iran recently, I stated bluntly that we needed to open a strategic dialogue, we needed to send high-level representation to that dialogue, and only if and when that completely failed should we even be considering "other options".

I also outlined for my audience all the times -- some when we had maximum leverage -- that we refused such dialogue over the past four years. The default decision by the cabal -- after it had flummoxed the statutory process -- was achieved: no talks with evil people, particularly those occupying prominent positions in "the axis".

From the time of Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech and many, many years before -- it was clear that Iran's behavior was high on the roster of key U.S. national security priorities. We knew that Iran was a big nation, a key player in the Middle East, a financier of terrorist activity beyond its borders, and aspired to regional and international greatness, and that many factions inside Iran yearned for normalization of relations with America. It is a nation full of dramatic contradictions -- but it s a nation that needs to be dealt with, not ignored.

Ignoring Iran's self-initiated diplomatic effort in 2003 is exactly what President Bush, under the influence of Rumsfeld and Cheney, did.

Here is a segment from a fascinating article by Gareth Porter that reflects some of Wilkerson's insights as well as important commentary from Brookings Scholar and former NSC Senior Director for Middle East Affairs Flynt Leverett:

Lawrence Wilkerson, then chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell, said the failure to adopt a formal Iran policy in 2002-03 was the result of obstruction by a "secret cabal" of neo-conservatives in the administration, led by Vice President Dick Cheney.

"The secret cabal got what it wanted: no negotiations with Tehran," Wilkerson wrote in an e-mail to Inter Press Service (IPS).

The Iranian negotiating offer, transmitted to the State Department in early May 2003 by the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, acknowledged that Iran would have to address US concerns about its nuclear program, although it made no specific concession in advance of the talks, according to Flynt Leverett, then the National Security Council's senior director for Middle East Affairs.

Iran's offer also raised the possibility of cutting off Iran's support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad and converting Hezbollah into a purely socio-political organization, according to Leverett. That was an explicit response to Powell's demand in late March that Iran "end its support for terrorism".

In return, Leverett recalls, the Iranians wanted the US to address security questions, the lifting of economic sanctions and normalization of relations, including support for Iran's integration into the global economic order.

Leverett also recalls that the Iranian offer was drafted with the blessing of all the major political players in the Iranian regime, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini.

Realists, led by Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, were inclined to respond positively to the Iranian offer. Nevertheless, within a few days of its receipt, the State Department had rebuked the Swiss ambassador for having passed on the offer.

Exactly how the decision was made is not known. "As with many of these issues of national security decision-making, there are no fingerprints," Wilkerson told IPS. "But I would guess Dick Cheney with the blessing of George W Bush."

In corners of the Pentagon, CIA, State Department and National Security Agency -- as well as in the Office of the President and Vice President, employees of our government -- supported by taxpayers -- are considering bombing and other hard shock scenarios to preempt Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. The truth is that we should always have back up plans, hard and soft scenarios, diplomacy backed by resolve. . .all of that.

But it's a real travesty when diplomacy is never really attempted -- and when the force that Cheney's wing of the foreign policy establishment wants applied actually wrecks American objectives, undermines our goals and interests, and frequently gives the thugs that we are trying to confront the legitimacy they need to grow stronger.

-- Steve Clemons

How did America become great? Some would argue that it was indeed great before restless explorers, settlers seeking economic opportunity, and persecuted religious victims and others migrated here -- and I get that point.

But in the last couple of centuries, America became great because it was the single biggest "brain drain" problem for the rest of the world. The smartest and most talented people in the world came to the U.S. to pursue a higher education, escape persecution, or to chase other opportunities -- and where smart, talented people go, so goes wealth creation, social advancement, and the like.

I am not going to weigh in on the full immigration debate in a short post now.

I believe that America needs to control its borders, full stop.

However, members of Congress have been engaged in a debate that seems to have no strategy to it, no sense of what the nation needs, or what signals we are sending abroad. Smart, brilliant people beyond our borders are now electing not to try to get into this country anymore because the hurdles are too high.

I wrote about this a couple of years back in a New York Times piece partnered with an article striking the same themes authored by former CIA Director and Texas A&M President Robert Gates.

But this in from a Senate Judiciary Committee session on Monday. Apparently, Senator Dianne Feinstein has concerns that too many foreigners are keeping otherwise promising Americans out of public university slots.

Thus, Feinstein introduced an amendment to address the displacement of U.S. citizens by foreign students in public universities.

As she started, Senator Arlen Specter cut her off and said, "So you want to raise the fees for foreign students? I'll agree to that, if it will limit debate." Apparently, Bill Frist had him under real time pressure to finish with the bill.

As a TWN source reported:

Votes were cast, and a provision to raise the application fee by $1000 was promptly inserted.

Where is the debate, the strategy, the cost/benefit analysis of this new tax on foreign students?

A communication from Senator Feinstein's office about this provision reads:

The immigration bill creates a new student visa category for foreign students who will pursue an education here in science, engineering, mathematics, and technology -- fields in great need of graduates in this country.

Senator Feinstein's amendment doubles the application fee from $1,000 to $2,000 and the additional money will be pumped into scholarships and job training for Americans; as well as to combat fraud in the student visa program.

Frankly, we should be doing the opposite of what Feinstein suggests by doubling the application cost for foreign students. America should be promoting foreign student enrollment in public and private U.S. universities to keep America on the positive side of global brain drain realities.

Let me rephrase that -- to get America back into a positive balance -- because right now we are not luring the best and brightest from abroad. They are choosing Canada, the UK, France, Germany, and elsewhere where the border/visa interrogations are less hostile.

This move by Senator Feinstein, from the vantage point I have now, looks wrong-headed, pugnacious, and disdainful of the contributions that people from abroad have made to this country.

Perhaps Senator Feinstein has not had a chance to think through all the dimensions of this proposal, but the doubling of a $1000 fee is far too blunt an instrument to level out any perceived problems of foreigners knocking out Americans at U.S. universities.

Feinstein's amendment should be nixed.

-- Steve Clemons

Just announced. . .Jack Abramoff sentenced to five years, 10 months in prison.

This is too light for someone who so badly damaged this democracy.

Wait....update....this is just for the Florida fraud case. He still needs to be sentenced for federal crimes.

Good.

-- Steve Clemons

(Philippe Sands, Queen's Counsel and Professor of Law, University College London)

On 31 January 2003, David Manning -- who now serves as British Ambassador to the United States -- recorded notes on a secret understanding between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush that their two nations were committing to war against Iraq in March 2003 regardless of diplomatic outcomes with Saddam Hussein.

The memo is extremely important in understanding the pathway to war that Bush and his team engineered -- and this important memo is embedded where it first surfaced -- in a brilliant and provocative book by Philippe Sands, Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules.

The "Manning Memo" was featured in a major, front page New York Times story earlier this week.

One might ask why we need more confirmation at this point that Blair and Bush were set on a course for war -- despite mountains of counsel that their focus and plans were off target. In fact, the real target should have been bin Laden, who is still at large and whose personal ambitions to launch a global transnational Islamic radical terrorist movement have succeeded because of the Bush-Blair miscalculation.

But getting the record straight is important. It creates, hopefully, resistance against committing the same sorts of errors again. It makes sure that the trust that Presidents and Prime Ministers depended upon from their publics is harder won next time. One hopes anyway.

Philippe Sands will be speaking at the New America Foundation for the American Strategy Program, which I direct, on Thursday, 30 March (tomorrow) from 3-5 p.m. I will chair the meeting.

If you'd like to attend, RSVP to me at steve@thewashingtonnote.com. The address is 1630 Connecticut Avenue, NW, 7th Floor in Washington, D.C.

Should be a fascinating session. . .particularly given the oral arguments yesterday before the U.S. Supreme Court that America's secret military tribunals are unconstitutional.

-- Steve Clemons

(Meretz Political Ad: Two Sperm Meet and Talk at Airport)

Some observers are suggesting that the new parties and new personalities in Israeli politics have clobbered the old.

I think that the bigger story is that the political right in Israel has imploded. Ariel Sharon as former head of the Likud Party, the party now headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, broke apart the vertebrae of the right and shattered the paralysis that had frozen Israel into a long-term self-destructive position regarding its all-important border dispute with Palestinians.

Had Ariel Sharon, who still lies in a coma, died a few days before the election, Kadima -- which drew members from both Likud and Labor -- might have added another ten seats to its tally, but this vote yesterday was not about sympathy for Sharon. In fact, Kadima performed a bit below expectations, securing just 28 seats. But that's enough -- and frankly, Olmert's need for partners makes him more pliable on some of Israel's domestic and foreign policy challenges.

Amir Peretz performed above expectations. Interestingly, his campaign was helped by the firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner which will get at least some credit in Peretz's surprising success. Stan Greenberg's firm was prominently profiled in the recent documentary hit, Our Brand is Crisis, about which I'll be writing more soon.

Peretz wants the government to focus on economic policies that improve conditions for Israel's working underclass and he is a strong believer in "negotiated" rather than "unilaterally imposed" solutions regarding to Israel's permanent borders and other issues like access to and control of Jerusalem, right of Palestinians to return, settlement-related land swaps, and the like. Peretz was able to keep Labor whole, and even moved it up a few notches above 2003 levels even though there were significant defections to Kadima.

Shas, a party of orthodox Jews, that is a likely coalition partner in the new government surged far beyond expectations and is now Israel's third largest political party. Some think that this "black hats" crowd is opposed to anything that would undermine a "Greater Israel". I'm no specialist on Shas, but in the limited discussions I have had with politically aware orthodox Jews, I sense no such rigidity. They are not part of the National Right in Israel and focus more on the religious dimensions of public policy. My sense is that Shas can support the right kind of negotiated Palestinian-Israel deal. Olmert must think so as well or he would not be inviting Shas into the government.

Israel's fourth largest political party is not the Likud, but is rather the new Yisrael Beitenu party headed by the charismatic Avigdor Lieberman -- whose party depends almost entirely on Israel's newest block of mostly-Russian speaking immigrants. Lieberman's party is ultra-nationalist and very committed to settlement protection and expansion, but at the same time must deal with the chronic underemployment and social problems related to his primary constituents. There is a lot of tension regarding the Russian immigrants, many of whom more traditional Israelis do not consider real Jews. This is something I had never heard before -- but the tectonics between other parts of Israeli society and the Russian-speaking segments are fragile.

Yisrael Beitenu will also be seen by many as the new leader of the political opposition. But one of the trends I saw when I was recently in Israel is that the supporters of this party were increasingly isolated from other parts of Israeli society -- and while they have coalesced and pushed their party forward, they may have just hit their upper water mark. I asked the Mayor of Israel's largest settlement in the Occupied territories whether he would become a champion for protecting and promoting the interests of other settlements, many of which have become dominated by the new Russian immigrants. He said definitively, "No", and said that there were serious disagreements among the heads of various settlements.

Thus, Yisrael Beitenu may have a difficult time working in common purpose with other opposition parties if it's own future strength depends upon an agitated and motivated ethnic group that other parties will no doubt either try to co-opt or isolate politically. Given that Olmert has so quickly committed himself to negotiations with the Palestinians, he is calculating that he can get away with bulldozing the supporters of Yisrael Beitenu who solidly support the far right -- but which now have little influence in any of the other leading parties.

Now in fifth, somewhat shockingly, is Likud under the probable temporary direction of Netanyahu. Netanyahu failed to capture the imagination of Israel's security-concerned citizens in the wake of Sharon's move to Kadima. Some blame Netanyahu for inspiring Rabin's death when he failed to speak out against extremist elements in his party who depicted Rabin as a latter-day Nazi. Netanyahu again failed to curb Likud elements who were doing the same with both Ariel Sharon and Olmert. This was one of the reasons why Netanyahu's efforts backfired. He flirts with radicals who tilt more towards violence and force than towards principled policy stands and constructive engagement. Some have told me that chances are high that Netanyahu will be de-throned soon.

On other fronts, the Pensioners -- a new party concerned primarily with seeing to the social safety net for Israel's more aged workers and retirees -- did unbelievably well and probably shore up Amir Peretz's intentions to drive more national attention towards the domestic economy.

The Arab parties also did resoundingly well and have done a good job of securing a Knesset presence more in line with their 20% portion of Israel's population. Interestingly, the success of the Arab parties will underscore for the Israeli Jewish parties why they must move forward on permanent status negotiations. When looking at the entire population of Israelis and Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories, the population is about 52.5% Israeli Jew and 47.5% non-Israeli Jew, and the latter are growing at a raid democratic clip while Israeli Jews are suffering declining replacement rates.

The one somwhat sad result in this election was Meretz, headed by former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin who initiated the Oslo process and who is one of the most intelligent and capable policy players in Israeli politics. Beilin is on the left and focused his party's agenda on securing "civil marriage" -- which is a huge issue it turns out.

Rather than focusing more squarely on the needs of "civil marriage" in heterosexual relationships, Yossi's advisors pushed him to make it a campaign for civil marriage rights in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships -- but the ads promoting same-sex marriage seemed to me to stand out more than the straight ads.

Meretz ran one hilarious political ad with two guys dressed as big white "drops" -- sort of like a white candy kiss -- but these were meant to be drops of sperm (no, I'm not kidding), and they were discussing their fears of being born as a woman because women in Israel are often subjected to religious and other forms of discrimination. Then, I think (as I don't speak Hebrew) one of the sperm "hit on" the other sperm and mentioned that he looked forward to "coming out" -- code words that the sperm thinks he's gay. (Note that I may have some errors in translation from the sperm episode.)

I admire the bravery of the ads, and they are certainly far ahead of the discussions America is having on these fronts -- but still, I'm not sure that Yossi Beilin's party selected a roster of policy objectives that would move it forward. The jury is still out on whether Meretz will be brought into government or not. My sources tell me that it's doubtful at this time.

Hope these reflections are useful to those of you who don't follow the political theatrics in Israel closely. There are many sources more informed than TWN on the nuances and historical context of what is currently happening -- but I also feel that there has been a sort of "cartel" of institutions and commentators in Washington who have dominated discourse on Israel-Palestine issues, and I'm intending to help shatter that cartel.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Well, this is big news.

The man who will be Israel's next Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert has dropped his bid for unilaterally settling Israel's borders and has called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to negoatiate the permanent borders of Israel.

Last Wednesday, Abbas said he was ready for such negotiations.

As Akiva Eldar reported:

"You are going into very important elections," Abu Mazen says. "We are in a historic period, in which we must decide whether we will move toward peace and a better future for our children. I can promise that you have a partner for this peace. On the day after the elections you will find us ready to sit in negotiations with no prior conditions. The leadership of both peoples and also of the international community has a supreme responsibility to exploit this opportunity. It may be the last hope to accord the two peoples their right to live in security and stability. The coming generations will not forgive us if we let it slip by.

"If I am not a partner, ask yourselves who is a partner. I am one of those who signed the Oslo agreement and was a patron of the negotiations that were conducted prior to it in secret for eight months. I supported, and I continue to support, a clear peace plan, based on the legitimacy of international law, to which we all agreed, and on the road map. I have called ceaselessly for a hudna [cease-fire] in order to enable the continuation of negotiations, and I achieved a period of calm when I was prime minister.

"I have often swum against the current, but when our public hears from Israel that there is no Palestinian partner - that is something that I cannot explain. . .

. . .The negotiations with Israel will be conducted by the PLO's negotiations unit, on the basis of international legitimacy and the Arab [Saudi] initiative. I am unreservedly committed to the road map, to which you [Israel] appended 14 reservations. If we reach an agreement, I will be the one to sign it. If needed, I will put it to a referendum. I received 62 percent in the elections, in which I condemned violence outspokenly. I am certain that I will also succeed in getting a majority for a peace agreement."

I think that the Bush administration will be a key, if quiet, player in what unfolds. Progress, if it is made, will happen on extremely fragile ground -- but there ia an opportunity here, and success either in the near or mid-term could help generate a virtuous cycle in the Muslim world rather than the negative, cynical realities that dominate now.

This is just hopeful news -- but it's important for proponents of negotiations not to get carried away with illusions.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Amir Peretz actually looks like one of the big winners -- clearly surpassing expectations -- if exit polls hold steady with vote count.

Avigdor Lieberman of the Russian-immigrant supported Yisrael Beitanu party -- a hard-right party -- is also a big winner.

Netanyahu is the largest loser of the day -- and the Likud are apparently in crisis mode.

Here is an update on poll results (120 seats total):

Kadima 28 (in 2003 -- 0) Center-Left

Labor 20 (in 2003 -- 19) Center-Left

Shas 13 (in 2003 -- 11) (Orthodox, not part of National Right)

Yisrael Beitenu 12 (in 2003 -- ?) Right

Likud 11 (in 2003 -- 38) Right

NU-NRP 9 (in 2003 -- 13) Right

UTJ 6 (in 2003 -- 5) (Orthodox, not part of National Right)

Meretz 4 (in 2003 -- 6) Center-Left

Pensioners 7 (in 2003 -- ?) Center-Left

Arab 10 (in 2003 -- 2) Center-Left

This gives the Center-Left a potential range of seats between 69, and the right 32, with the ultra orthodox (who are not part of the national right) at 19.

Shas, as part of the ultra orthodox camp, has already been rumored to be a likely coalition partner to Kadima and Labor, which would take two-thirds of the orthodox seats at 19 and put those in a center-left coalition as well.

I am breaking my earlier vow not to run numbers publicly until official results are announced.

I have listed the 2003 party strength numbers that I could quickly find.

I am doing so with trepidation, but these numbers were just sent to me from a seasoned Israeli political insider.

All in all, this is the sort of result that portends many positive possibilities.

-- Steve Clemons

Despite the anxiety many feel about the elections in Israel today, thus far the polls show the lowest turnout in Israel's history.

This is interesting and may mean that efforts to scare Israelis to the polls, whether the source of fear is Netanyahu or Hamas, are having little effect.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Andrew "Andy" Card, one of the least publicly visible White House Chiefs of Staff in history but someone with a steady, careful management hand who must be given credit for much of Bush's political success, has announced his resignation.

Card, of course, was the staff member to first inform President Bush of the 9/11 terror attacks in New York while the President was reading to an elementary school class in Florida.

Barbara Bush, as many may recall, was reported by TWN to be ready to roast a few of her son's staff members alive on a pig spit. According to well-placed sources, she was encouraging Bush to reshuffle his staff as she felt they had served him poorly.

Now, what about Rumsfeld? what about Rove? what about Addington? and what about neutralizing or retiring Cheney?

OMB Director Joshua Bolten will succeed Card as Bush's Chief of Staff.

-- Steve Clemons

I was one of many who was seduced by the early poll results showing a John Kerry win after the last presidential election -- despite my having reported that Karl Rove's spirits had buoyed in the final days of the election. I had noted that Rove thought his camp was helped by bin Laden's tape released just days before the election as well as Teresa Heinz Kerry's comments that Laura Bush had never had a real job.

There were, of course, many other issues at play -- including some election shenanigans (i.e. crimes) in Ohio and Florida. But those two incidents turned the election around in Rove's assessment.

I also reported too early the polling results that showed Hamas in a huge surge in the Palestinian election but did not report them winning, as Hamas certainly did.

In the Israel case, I am just going to keep my powder dry. The Boston Globe is reporting a defection from Kadima and a surge for the far right parties in Israel, particularly Yisrael Beiten, which is supported by many of Israel's newest Russian-speaking, hard-line immigrants.

I'm still hopeful for a strong showing by Labor and the centrist Kadima Parties, but we have to see how they fare.

It was not the brightest move by the Palestinian parliament to set tomorrow as the date for voting to approve the Hamas-led government. Avigdor Lieberman, head of the party Yisrael Beitenu, has been able to exploit the Hamas victory and make it more tangible because of tomorrow's Palestinian Parliament vote.

To its credit, to some degree, Hamas has been trying to downplay Israeli concerns about near-term disorder, though in my view, Hamas has not been effective.

According to the Boston Globe's Anne Barnard:

Signaling possible flexibility, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's choice for prime minister, told Palestinian legislators yesterday that his government would welcome "dialogue" with the so-called Quartet of Middle East interlocutors -- the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations -- "seeking all means to end the state of conflict and enforce calm in the region."

Haniyeh also called on the international community to "line up with the values of justice and fairness . . . and not to take side with one party against another." He did not make clear how Hamas would find common ground with the Quartet after so far rejecting its demands to renounce violence, recognize Israel, and accept previous peace agreements.

Israeli officials dismissed the comments as an attempt to lull international opinion on the eve of the Israeli vote.

We'll be watching this race as it unfolds -- but no announcements of the winner until they announce the winner.

-- Steve Clemons

This just hit the internet at Raw Story, and TWN has confirmed the essential points through a source close to Rove:

According to several Pentagon sources close to Rove and others familiar with the inquiry, Bush's senior adviser tipped off Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to information that led to the recent "discovery" of 250 pages of missing email from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Rove has been in the crosshairs of Fitzgerald's investigation into the outing of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson for what some believe to be retaliation against her husband, former U.S. Ambassador to Gabon, Joseph Wilson. Wilson had been an ardent critic of pre-war Iraq intelligence.

While these sources did not provide any details regarding what type of arrangements Rove's attorney Robert Luskin may have made with the special prosecutor's office, if any, they were able to provide some information regarding what Rove imparted to Fitzgerald's team. The individuals declined to go on the record out of concern for their jobs.

According to one source close to the case, Rove is providing information on deleted emails, erased hard drives and other types of obstruction by staff and other officials in the Vice President's office. Pentagon sources close to Rove confirmed this account.

None would name the staffers and/or officials whom Rove is providing information about. They did, however, explain that the White House computer system has "real time backup" servers and that while emails were deleted from computers, they were still retrievable from the backup system. By providing the dates and recipient information of the deleted emails, sources say, Rove was able to chart a path for Fitzgerald directly into the office of the Vice President.

Rove giving Patrick Fitzgerald a path into 250 pages of deleted and/or previously unprovided electronic communications from and within the Vice President's office must give serious heartburn to Scooter Libby's defense team, being paid for in part by this cabal of supporters.

Fitzgerald, as I have written before, is setting a high standard for how public officials should conduct themselves.

We have about nine months before the Scooter Libby trial starts. The real question is whether Fitzgerald will widen the pool of those charged with crimes -- and it's still too early to tell.

-- Steve Clemons

Antonin Scalia, who has already declared his full-fledged support for secret military tribunals BEFORE hearing the appeal this week, has startled Christians around the nation by "flipping off" critics moments after attenting Roman Catholic mass.

I haven't seen the photo, but UPI reports that a photographer with The Pilot, the Archdiocese of Boston newspaper, snapped a shot.

Scalia "ordered him" not to publish the photo. So much for separation of church and state.

Rationalizing what he did, Scalia said "That's Sicilian."

But just in case anyone has forgotten, George W. Bush gave what he called the "one-finger salute" in this film clip, which he thought no one would see.

In the President's defense, however, I've done the same -- but neither of us was walking out of church when we let the finger fly.

John Aravosis has more.

-- Steve Clemons

I find myself intrigued with last evening's installment on The Morningside Post, a new blog launched by students at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

SIPA apparently invited Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi to speak -- which he did via teleconference.

Qaddafi's views on Libya's authentic democracy as compared to other fake ones fascinates:

A while back, I sat in on a roundtable discussion with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Senator Sam Brownback to discuss a report they co-produced, "Uncommon Leadership for Common Values: Bipartisan Action on Human Rights".

At the luncheon, I asked Senator Brownback and Secretary Albright about the gap between the ideals and objectives of enhancing global human rights and the reality that there are a lot of despicable thugs in the world and that America didn't have unlimited resources. Albright's response -- which I have heard her say now several times -- was that she saw herself as a "realistic idealist" or perhaps as an "idealistic realist." I see myself as an "ethical realist".